Stretchable electronics are a class of electronic materials, components, and devices that allow for the straining of an electronics stack such that the entirety of the device (substrate, backplane, interconnects, etc.) can be stretched without significant degradation of the behavior of electronic components. Typically, this involves the fabrication of electronic components atop an elastomeric substrate.
More importantly, multilayer structures such as metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors, diodes, transistors and others, currently require a rigid form factor. While geometric solutions can address the flexibility of such structures (e.g., thin-film variations of such structures can accommodate smaller bending radii), the stretchability of such a device is still limited. Current methods address this limitation through the lamination of stiff ‘islands’ atop the stretchable elastomer base, requiring only interconnects to be strain tolerant. However, this lamination leads to interfacial issues that can manifest at intermediate and high strains of the elastomeric substrate onto which the stiff substrate materials are laminated.